Departing The Library
by isoner
Summary: Two one shots to show feature events that were not actually shown during the Silence In the Library/Forest of the Dead episodes.
1. Donna

Departing the Library 1

The Library was alive once again, for at least a little while. The 24 hour timeframe the Doctor had negotiated with the Vashta Nerada had nearly elapsed, and 4022 people were a lot to evacuate.

The planetary Transmats only had a limited range. Back when The Library was fully active, there were regular transports moving through the system, but that was a long time ago.

The restored Librarians and the survivors of the Lux expedition to the Library were working together to catalogue the restored survivors and Transmat them to passing ships who were responding to the new distress call.

The Doctor, a tall skinny man wearing a brown suit, stood by as an outsider. He watched the evacuation proceedings next to his female companion, a woman named Donna Nobel, who watched the departing survivors with a hopeful longing.

As a Time Lord, the Doctor was aware of things the normal human was not. He was able to look at a person or thing and immediately know elements of its past, and its possible futures. He could tell when those futures were fixed or when they were in flux.

Even now, the Doctor studied Donna he could see an important crossroads. She could find the man she met and married in the dreamlike existence of the Library Computer. If Donna found him, the Doctor knew that Donna would leave him and live a happy life; it would be a good ending, but the thought of loosing her was so sad, the Doctor could barely stand the thought of it. Donna's other possibilities were limitless, including one that was looming ever larger in the future that he could not see. The curiosity at this unknown fate was one of the reasons he traveled with her. Sometimes he was filled with dread that the future he could not see would be tied with an unbearable sadness, but his childlike curiosity served to override such fears.

Ultimately, he would abide by his people's first principle. The choice of which future to choose would be hers and hers alone.

"Any luck?" the Doctor asked Donna as she returned to him.

As much as he thought about Donna, his mind was also drawn to the mysteries of the woman River Song. But her future was over now, although he supposed he would be able to look forward to seeing her past in his own future. Maybe. Time was always in flux.

"Lets be honest, it wasn't real was it?"

"Maybe not."

"I made up the perfect man, what does that say about me?"

"Everything… sorry, I meant to say nothing."

The time of decision was nearly upon them. Then she would have to choose. A happy future or the continued adventures of traveling with him, which would she choose?

"What about you, are you alright?"

"Im always alright."

"Is alright special Time Lord code for really not alright at all?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm alright too."

The moment was nearly here… just another second.

"Come on," the Doctor said, taking Donna's hand, and guiding her out of the room, just a moment before Donna would have seen the man she had been searching for. The choice wasn't hers after all.


	2. River

Departing the Library 2

River Song

River Song was dead, the Doctor lamented, helpless to do anything while handcuffed.

She took his place in the chair, using her own mind as excess storage space to help the computer CAL. The overload fried her brain. If the Doctor had done it, he may have been able to regenerate to survive, but River Song was merely a human, and had no chance at all.

"Doctor, are you here?" Strackman Lux shouted.

"I'm here," the Doctor answered, still depressed over the needless death.

Strackman stood stock still when he saw the body of his expedition leader slumped in the chair.

"She gave her life to bring them all back," the Doctor explained, "Could you hand me that?"

Lux handed the Doctor his Sonic Screwdriver, which the Doctor used to release his cuffs.

The Doctor inhaled deeply, and took a final look at the body of River Song. "Come on, let's go."

The body of River Song was left behind, forgotten in the rush to evacuate the 4022 people off the planet before the Doctor's grace period expired, and the Doctor had a mad dash to save the consciousness of River Song to the central computer to both save the brave woman, as well as giving CAL another playmate to talk to.

The time frame expired, and all the living beings all gone. The Vashta Nerada had their forests back.

Not quite all of the meat was gone however. The shadows gathered around the body of River Song.

The Doctor was wrong about River Song, she was not a normal human. Conceived in the Time Vortex, she was a Child of the Tardis, her DNA mutated so that it was closer to that of a Time Lord than Human.

The shadows closed in around the body of River Song, taking their time, as this sort of meat would be a rare treat from now on, they wanted to savor it.

The body began to glow.

The shadows pulled back, frightened by something different, but still unwilling to give up their treat.

The body of River Song began to glow even brighter, and then there was an energy flare that immediately burned up all the Vashta Nerada that were in the room.

The body slouched in the chair was no longer resembled that of River Song, but of a younger woman, who was very much alive.

"Well, I didn't think I gave the Doctor ALL my regenerations, all those years ago," the woman said, "Guess he lied again, or maybe he just assumed. Am I going to talk to myself like this all the time? That doesn't sound like me."

She took a moment to examine her new body. She was going to need a new wardrobe, and maybe this would be an excellent opportunity to assume a new identity and the lack of privacy at that prison.

But first, she needed to get out.

For some reason, the shadows avoided her as she moved her way up through the Library. The Library was completely empty, so either it hadn't worked after all, or everyone had already been evacuated. She activated a signaler, and hoped there would be some straggler still close enough to pick up her signal.

She felt a tingle and saw a blue-white light as a trans-mat beam materialized her onboard a space ship. A massive ship from the looks if things.

"Welcome to the Papal Mainframe," a friendly sounding voice said, "You are not identifiable. Please state your designation and belief system."

"I—Im sorry?"

A kind looking young man, wearing a military uniform with church adornments, approached her.

"We transported you up from the Library. You are lucky to be alive, we thought we had gotten everybody off the planet already. Welcome to the Papal Mainframe. Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you. I'm sorry about the lack of nudity," she said. She did love a man in uniform.

"Your identity is not on file as a patron of The Library, still I suppose after all this time, a Data glitch is not surprising," he said.

"Oh, no. I hadn't gotten my library card yet. I had only just arrived when everything went strange," she tried to explain. "My name is… uh… Tasha. Tasha Lem. Do you have any job openings? It seems I need a fresh start, and I do love a man in uniform."


End file.
